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Hawaiian and Alaska are right now encroaching on markets that have traditionally been "ours" in the past. Wait and see if I have any comments about losing, if we do. I won't write anything because it's a union carrier paying a union wage. If we lose because we offer an inferior product, so be it. At least I didn't lose to an airline paying ridiculous narrowbody wages. Just the fact that you're defending it goes to show how out of touch most VA guys are.
Um, again, "ALPA" didn't do anything wrong IMO. The TWA pilots chose their path, and because they didn't get what they wanted with the APA, they sued ALPA. The TWA pilot group could have chosen to not agree to the prepackaged deal and gone into bankruptcy with no deal with American and taken their chances. They chose the route that got some of their pilots hired at American, but when they didn't get what they felt they deserved, they sued ALPA. I mean, c'mon? Was "ALPA" supposed to get a 25 year Captain at a bankrupt TWA date of hire and placed ahead of a bunch of guys at a successful airline? It's sour grapes. I think when the lawsuit is finally decided it will prove that. But ALPA does make for a nice, easy, fat target though.
My airline did not get an ATSB loan. My airline reorganized under U.S. bankruptcy law.
ALPA hasn't tried to stop the spread of RJ flying once we determined the damage it was doing? Really? Are you kidding me? We're in contract negotiations right now. Scope if front and center and is easily a strike issue. It's been a major issue for just about every airline for years. Unfortunately, labor can't stop much while reorganizing in bankruptcy.
Your point at the end of the first paragraph makes no sense to me. It's almost like you're making my point for me. The whole industry saw the damage that airlines like JetBlue, Frontier, Southwest, etc., did to mainline pilot wages. That same damage will be done AGAIN if airlines like VA flourish, dragging down narrowbody wages and compensation further. It doesn't matter what excuse you have for it, it damages the industry.
You are taking a very comprehensive issue, focusing on one part of it and laying full blame for what you consider the woes of the industry on that one part. It is called simplification. Perhaps that is your only way of grasping it.Originally Posted by ualdriver
Deal with it? Sure. I can deal with companies like VA and Allegiant and Skybus. I have no problem "dealing" with the competition EXCEPT when their attempt to compete is to play the "let's see who can pay their pilots less" game. That's the game upstarts play. You come in, pay an industry undercutting wage, and then use that labor cost advantage to undercut the rest of us. How about we all compete on something except discount airline pilot salaries? If your product is so great, why doesn't your management pay a market wage, WITH retirement and benefits?Hawaiian and Alaska are right now encroaching on markets that have traditionally been "ours" in the past. Wait and see if I have any comments about losing, if we do. I won't write anything because it's a union carrier paying a union wage. If we lose because we offer an inferior product, so be it. At least I didn't lose to an airline paying ridiculous narrowbody wages. Just the fact that you're defending it goes to show how out of touch most VA guys are.
Um, again, "ALPA" didn't do anything wrong IMO. The TWA pilots chose their path, and because they didn't get what they wanted with the APA, they sued ALPA. The TWA pilot group could have chosen to not agree to the prepackaged deal and gone into bankruptcy with no deal with American and taken their chances. They chose the route that got some of their pilots hired at American, but when they didn't get what they felt they deserved, they sued ALPA. I mean, c'mon? Was "ALPA" supposed to get a 25 year Captain at a bankrupt TWA date of hire and placed ahead of a bunch of guys at a successful airline? It's sour grapes. I think when the lawsuit is finally decided it will prove that. But ALPA does make for a nice, easy, fat target though.
My airline did not get an ATSB loan. My airline reorganized under U.S. bankruptcy law.
ALPA hasn't tried to stop the spread of RJ flying once we determined the damage it was doing? Really? Are you kidding me? We're in contract negotiations right now. Scope if front and center and is easily a strike issue. It's been a major issue for just about every airline for years. Unfortunately, labor can't stop much while reorganizing in bankruptcy.
Your point at the end of the first paragraph makes no sense to me. It's almost like you're making my point for me. The whole industry saw the damage that airlines like JetBlue, Frontier, Southwest, etc., did to mainline pilot wages. That same damage will be done AGAIN if airlines like VA flourish, dragging down narrowbody wages and compensation further. It doesn't matter what excuse you have for it, it damages the industry.
" If your product is so great, why doesn't your management pay a market wage, WITH retirement and benefits?"
Apparently you have failed to learn about supply and demand back in junior high. Virgin America has well over 5000 fully qualified and regularly updated resumes on file. Southwest, Jetblue, Allegiant all have at least that and more. Why do they have so many resumes on file? Oh yeah, the issues you give yourself a free pass on - relaxing scope. The scope ALPA voted to relax, and further relaxed under bankruptcy, has created a huge supply of under compensated and out of work pilots. That is not the fault of Virgin America, JetBlue or Allegiant.
The problem with folks like you is you want everyone else to pay for the mistakes you made in the past - by staying unemployed or accepting poverty level paying jobs at regionals. You also fail to realize that by forcing pilots into regionals and the unemployment line by relaxing scope, you created a huge supply of qualified pilots for an ever decreasing number of jobs at legacy carriers. And in a capitalist economy, you can only artificially inflate wages through collective bargaining so much. The reason there are people like myself and 5000 others who are willing to take jobs at places like Virgin America is because there are no mainline, legacy jobs out there. Why? Because you guys started giving them away back in the 1990s. You did not have the foresight to see the end result, and you cannot change the past. But you also cannot reasonably expect those who have been negatively affected by your actions of the 1990s to continue to pay for your mistakes by sticking out at poverty level wages, or on the unemployment line. Talk about selfish - "we made a mistake and it cost you thousands of good job opportunities, so now you have to sacrifice and pass up the best jobs out there so we can make even more money".
Sadly, I can tell by your arguments that you do not have the ability to grasp the full scope of why the job market is the way it is. You focus blame on the pilots who take the jobs at those companies and ignore the reason why there happens to be thousands of pilots out there ready to take those jobs. For the fact that there are thousands of pilots out there ready, willing, and able to take those jobs is the real reason compensation has driven downward. And if you were to take an objective look at why all those pilots are out there, you would see the massive failures of your union have played a major part in it.